*Aw/Al*Issue01*Nov 2010 *

In This Issue…

Cover Artist Julian Lesser

Editor’s Note Lauren Tamraz

Words Joann Deiudicibus, Laura Mooney

Zan Strumfeld, Chris Pryslopski

Connor Syrewicz, Peter Viola

Jess Mullen, Laurence Carr, Howie Good

Art Karen Capobianco, Daniel Handal

Robert Capozzi, Elizabeth Unterman

Tad Richards, Kate Stack, Amy Cheng

David Morris Cunningham

Contributor Bios

Acknowledgements & Submission Guidelines

Red Flowers 2; Red Flowers 5; Yellow Flowers 2 Acrylic Paint, Ink & Resin

Cover Artist : Julian Lesser

Julian Lesser, born and raised in New York, received his BFA from New Paltz University with a concentration in painting. It was there that Lesser found his true voice and ability to capture his mind, consciousness and personality in the tangible form of paintings. In 2005 Lesser moved to New York City where he currently lives and works, creating art and exhibiting throughout the country. Lesser brings a love of color and exploration to his pieces, which also incorporates the energy and rush of the environments around him. Inspired by his own life and journey for truth and purpose Lesser's work portrays the many facets of the human condition. By focusing on basic virtues Lesser's work breaks down walls and manages to transcend gender, sexuality and race, making his paintings accessible to the broad public.

Just Flowers Collection: While at New Paltz, Lesser fell in love with the

surrounding landscape of hills and mountains. It left a lasting influence, which can be seen clearly in his latest body of work, Just Flowers, created this spring in anticipation of the summer. Long New York winters leave Lesser missing the warmth and ease of breezy summer days, and Just Flowers reflects upon the joy of weekend trips upstate, escaping the city, breathing in fresh air and hiking in the Shawangunk Mountains. Beautiful blooming flowers and clear bright skies calm and ease his soul.

To find out more about Julian’s work, upcoming shows and to purchase art, please visit www.julianlesser.com/ Julian is also the editor and publisher of

Boro, an Arts and Culture Magazine for Astoria and Long Island City. www.boromag.com

Editor’s Note... Lauren Tamraz

I recently saw a book on the shelf at Inquiring Minds in New Paltz titled, Were You Born

on the Wrong Continent? I was intrigued and read the inside flap. It described the divergence between American and European values and traditions, perhaps to comfort and enlighten those who might pick it up and say, "Yes! This explains it! All along I've been more of a Lithuanian than a Minnesotan!" Silly, maybe, but it stuck with me. I spent 18 years living in Yonkers, climbing up our fire escape to watch the the sky change colors from the roof.The only way to look around the neighborhood and not see a tall building was to be above them. A decade ago, I decided to attend SUNY New Paltz. The exact thrill of staring at those mountains, seeing people with a similar look in their eye with all that space above them and the painters and poets bouncing ideas off one another all made for an easy hook.

In those first seconds I thought, this is where I was supposed to be my whole life. Since that day I have learned remarkable details that reinforce that idea. I learned that my great-great-grandparents were born in New Paltz, listed as Lake Mohonk precisely. I dug further and discovered that their name--Roosa--is shared by a house on Huguenot Street, though after a generation or two from where I began, those relatives remain a mystery. The other side of the family goes back all the way to the Spotted Cow and Stockdale Coddington, a legend I never believed from my mother's mouth while growing up, and perhaps less well-known in this area than its cousin ship to soon follow, the Gilded Otter. She only knew the vague tale of the ship because of its memorable name. Yet, there it was one day, confirmed by the computer with my family history attached. I don't know what made them leave this place after 200 years of generations were born, but I feel so lucky to have wandered back.

The first story I heard upon moving to this area was that of the watchtower, and the importance of throwing a rock from it to the Wallkill River, lest you be doomed to return to New Paltz your whole life. I have always wondered what is wrong with those who choose to throw their rocks, literally or figuratively. I often wish to gather the stones of others who have drifted over the years, to draw them all together to this place of magic once more. But perhaps their people had other ideas for them, and they have different legends to fulfill. As for me, I will always be grateful that my Roosas and Coddingtons never threw their rocks, and I have been called back.

Dear reader, I thank you for being here and taking an interest in the creativity steeping around these hills and rivers. Awosting Alchemy began as a small idea to recognize those who energize and revolutionize the art & literary scene in the Hudson Valley. Though we can offer but a small fraction of this vast talent in each issue, I hope you will find images and ideas here that reaffirm why, you too, have held on to your rocks.

*L

North River

Track-tied waters steer

charred bone, teeth, and rail ships home:

South River city

-Joann Deiudicibus

Image: Karen Capobianco

Blackout

This winter waxes like July fireworks,

dims with the crash of black branches

into blank backyard. Snow sprays

windowpanes in shards and melt-

splatters

mixing mud, ankle-deep, in

driveways.

The wan barn wanes,

storm-sketched in ashen outline.

Fire warms arctic bones

better than skin alone or

the prospect of propane stove.

Snapshot: snapped utility pole

suspended

over public road; arteries of

electricity

arc azure against blackout sky.

Darkling ghosts roam in drifts,

flurried ephemera hording history.

-Joann Deiudicibus

Hog Slaughter

The group is hushed with anticipation as the slight, stooped farmer crunches toward us across his gravel driveway. He speaks, and his quiet voice cracks with nervousness, and maybe disuse. “We’ve run into some roadblocks here. The girl who was supposed to give this tour, ah, she, uh, she had an emergency. A serious emergency. Our stun-gun is broken.. we, ahh.. found out this morning that the stun-gun was broken. And I’m afraid we would have to do this the old-fashioned way.” There is a breeze of excited whispers. “And I don’t want to.. ahh.. upset anyone, because it’s, ahh… not pretty, the old-fashioned way. It’s a process as old as history itself, but it’s not pretty.” He shields his eyes against the sun with a flattened hand to read our eager faces. His awkward un-question hangs for a moment in the air, heavy with silence; to answer aloud would be to take individual ownership for collective voyeurism. The aged farmer wheezily emphasizes several more times his disinclination to show an “old-fashioned” slaughter, and takes us on a tour of the farm while he silently waits for someone to speak up with a decision. The group wrinkles their noses at the smell of pure animal shit and fawns over the baby chickens. The ground is dusty. The group is soft.

The pigs emit low, aggressive growling noises and bark as strangers enter their pen, which consists of a few corrals on concrete slabs. They are covered in scrapes and dried blood from fights, and their own excrement. Their large, expressive eyes are eerily naked with anger.

The farmer decides not to allow viewing of the actual slaughter, but only the preparation and evisceration of the carcass. The group enters the butchering area as a huge torch, roaring like a jet engine, engulfs the hanging

hog’s carcass in blue-white flames.

The stench of scorching hair overwhelms the air. There is an immediate mental disconnect between the pigs in the pen and the form of fatty-colored flesh hanging upside-down from a steel bar. Blood drips from the jagged, Y-shaped gash in his throat, and the hard-hatted Ecuadorian butcher alternatively slices into and sprays down the carcass as he breaks it apart. His movements are smooth and fast, unthinking. He appears the definition of an undesirable man to meet in a dark alley. A glossy-haired resident sheepdog foregoes the gory show in favor of nudging our hands for attention while he wags his tail. It does not concern him.

Later, as some of the group pays for produce and smoked pork products in the farm store, a terrible childish shrieking pierces the quiet. Through the window to the butchering area, a pig is crucified through his hind hooves and yanked into the air on the steel bar which now connects them. The same man slits his throat with a razor-edged boning knife from his chin up to his inverted breastbone. The noise reduces to a gurgle because his throat has been cut, but the pig thrashes wildly. Now he is silent, but he is far from dead. A gallon of blood at a time gushes down like a waterfall, and it is several minutes before the jerking subsides to twitching. The farm store’s Ecuadorian counterpart to the butcher—who has waited patiently while the stragglers watched—now laughs as attention and widened eyes shift back to the task at hand: payment.

-Laura Mooney

Image: Daniel Handal Owen at Awesome Farm, Tivoli

Vignette I

Everyone must jump into the sea and flail their arms and pretend to die and wait. They must wait. For the sharks and the jellies and the crabs and the beetles. And wait. Until the light starts to shine on their naked faces and begin to smother them with solitude, for ninety-nine years or so. And just when the light begins to lift off their faces and into the salty air, the fish will come and pull the people down. They will bite at their toes and nipples and nose and force them to the bottom. At the floor of the ocean there will be a box of jewels, filled to the brim. Everyone will hold their breath and swim towards the box. But one girl, whose skin will glimmer through the seaweed, will swim to the shore. Her lungs will fill with water until the trim of the ocean line meets the seagulls. She will take their wings and fly to the sand to build a castle.

-Zan Strumfeld

Hillcrest Lane

Dharma

is the steel wheeled tractor

down the lane

from the lodge.

surrounded

by third-growth

maple and oak.

who

should be surprised

by its perfect placement

atop a slight crown,

facing west,

pulling the rising sun?

a mug of coffee

balanced on the rusted seat

waits for the farmer

who will crank her over

and begin the day’s work

again.

-Chris Pryslopski

Image: Robert Capozzi Springtown

Judy in Love

Marcel sat up in bed, early morning Sunday. He could see the moon through one of the hopper windows that lined the apartment. It hung over a purple sky, white clouds emerging from the horizon. He could hear the beat of their wings.

“It’s amazing there is no life in you. You would think there would be a soul in something so perfect. No, you’re just rising from the tomb, every night like clockwork.” His words were inaudible because of the ring of the loud alarm that had woken him up. He liked to let it ring for a bit. Joshua was already turning in his sleep behind him. Marcel looked at him. A small man, skinny so that his ribs were pointing up towards the heavens. His face was so sullen and kind. You could see no sin, no age, in it. His large beard and hair were moving from the breeze of the fan. Marcel wondered how Joshua could stand that fan. The autumn chill was already coming in fierce and Marcel had been cold for weeks.

Marcel got up from bed and walked to the record player. He picked up an old record that was displayed proudly on a nearby shelf, Judy Garland’s Judy in Love, a house favorite. Marcel tried to skip the first song but caught the last verse. The song was “Zing! Went the Stings of My Heart,” which Marcel enjoyed but considered thoroughly overplayed. He was looking for the following track “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.”

“Dream awhile, scheme awhile,

you're sure to find happiness, and I guess

all those things you've always pinned

for.” Marcel began to sing and dance; slowly, quietly. He began to dress

himself. He pulled on his black pants and shirt. They fit him awkwardly, or rather, Marcel fit them awkwardly. He wasn’t portly but was in no way underfed. He was a short man and, though not even reaching thirty, looked well beyond his years. His hair was already beginning to thin, wrinkles already sitting heavy on his face; a small moustache for symmetry but little else. Snapping on his collar, he finished the outfit.

“Mmmm…” said Joshua rolling over. Marcel sat on the bed and admired his hair. It was the first time Joshua had ever grown it out.

“Your hair is amazing. You look like a lion,” said Marcel.

Joshua crept out of the bed. He slept only in a stained pair of white briefs. “He is beautiful,” thought Marcel. He admired the hair on Joshua’s body. He was so skinny, Marcel thought that he looked like a pineapple with all of the spiny peaks of his bones exposed.

“Lions like lambs, don’t they?” said Joshua as he pushed down Marcel’s collar and begin to nibble on his neck. Marcel laughed and turned his head a bit further. They kissed. “I could never be a lion, your lips are too much like ripe fruit.”

“The serpent’s fruit? Art thou tempting me? Maybe I will just have to pluck one of those ribs and make an Eve to bear this temptation.”

Joshua laughed. They kissed again. Joshua’s hand crept from Marcel’s face to his neck where he began fingering Marcel’s collar.

Image: Elizabeth Unterman

“I hate seeing you in these clothes.”

“I will have no time to change later,” said Marcel with the slightest bitterness. “I have to fill in at Morningwood this morning, one of the Eucharistic ministers is in the hospital again. Mrs. Salomi, old bitch.”

Joshua sighed in disgust as he sat back in bed and lit a cigarette.

“I just hate sneaking around like this.”

“Please.”

“Well I do! One would think Stonewall was just a demmed little picnic.”

Deconstructed Sweat Lodge

“The world changes much faster than the church.”

“And people faster still,” said Joshua as he lay down again. “I might as well have not even come out if I knew that it would be this discreet.”

Marcel cleared his throat. He did not want this conversation again. The points were all dead, crucified many times over.

“Just go back to sleep, and you won’t have to see me. Leave me to Judy.” Marcel began to dance again slowly. By this time, the record was on to the next track. “This is it, my great romance. I want to hang on to this one

big chance. You're mine, my loneliness

dies. I feel fine, with stars in my eyes.”

Joshua got up to embrace him. Nick Caraway, Mr. McKee, two levers; the two danced together. Marcel felt Joshua’s body. “You need to eat more.”

“Shut up,” said Joshua as he buried his head into Marcel’s chest. They moved around the apartment slowly. It wasn’t especially large but it had “the most darling cathedral ceilings,” being in a converted barn. Joshua’s great mane of hair pushed up into Marcel’s face and made him cough a bit.

“Go back to bed; I still have a few things to do.”

“Forever the romantic,” said Joshua as he sat back on the bed.

“Well you don’t have to be up today, take advantage, I am jealous.”

“Yes, being a lay person does have its perks,” said Joshua as he reached from the bed and pinched the fat on Marcel’s leg.

“Hey,” said Marcel with a wry, almost embarrassed kind of smile. “It would be nice if you came.”

“I couldn’t see you do that stuff. It would just get me all excited. Besides, Islip is such a drive. The Bellport congregation is just too convenient.”

“Yes, probably for the best.”

Joshua rolled over. Marcel continued to dance around the room as he made breakfast, a few eggs and some sausage. He was considering his sermon for that morning. He was going to begin talking about inspiration. How the muses inspired man to write the bible, how

Jesus was, Himself, inspired with the task of begin the Son. He was going to talk about the number forty and how it was always linked with creation rising from destruction; forty days and forty nights, forty years in the desert, and Jesus’ forty days of life after death. He was going to talk about Jesus as an artist and how His inspiration brought Him from the tomb. He was going to end by saying that perhaps We, right now, are still living those forty days with Him. During His sermons, Marcel wasn’t just a preacher but a Poet.

The moon caught his eye again, this time through the small window hanging above the sink. “You will just not let the sun take you. There has to be some life in you, some terrible life that lingers there despite your being so very dead. Go, please, take that dead hand and pull across that sad shroud that men of greater sin call sun.”

Marcel finished his breakfast and cleaned up the apartment. He gathered his things and, very carefully, put Judy back on the shelf. He kissed his hand and laid a soft kiss on her face.

Marcel crept back into bed. He kissed Joshua’s neck. Joshua rolled over and embraced him.

“Stay with me.”

“Don’t.”

“Please. Stay…”

“Stop it.”

“Please! Please…”

“Just stop it. I lo-”

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“Joshua, rela-”

“Either stay or get the fuck out!” Joshua’s face was red; his eyes were like two dead moons but shimmered, wet, like some pale sun. “Get. the fuck-”

“Alright” said Marcel in shock. He almost ran across the apartment and let himself out, slamming the door behind him. Before even taking another breath, Marcel was confronted with the hollow stare of the young woman living across the hall, Anne Johnson.

“Everything ok?” She began. Anne had been friends with Joshua since they were children. She had met Marcel only recently.

“Oh; hi Anne…” said Marcel. An awkward silence took the hallway. Anne was a thin woman who looked very young for her age. She was wearing heels and an evening dress. She had a thin black purse hanging from her shoulder and a bicycle with her, now leaning against the wall. “How has…Debbie been?”

“Debbie? Oh, oh. She’s fine. You know she delivered the baby only two weeks ago, don’t you?”

“No, I guess Josh didn’t-”

“Joshua didn’t tell you? That nasty boy. I will have a few words for him later.”

“Yeah… well, I have to-”

“Yeah, the baby is just adorable, you know. He has straight hair now but I can, somehow, tell that he will have

Debbie’s beautiful curls. I have the strangest sense for these kinds of things, as if I can already see the baby ten, twenty years from now.”

“The baby would be lucky to have her curls.”

“I just remember how when you two met you just went on and on about them.”

“Yeah well, her hair was-”

“‘Lovely as the sun,’ isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Well…” Anne let the word follow her into her purse as she began feeling around for a cigarette.

“Well-”

“Well listen Marcel,” Anne said still feeling around in her small handbag. “I had a question or two about religion and I thought that maybe you could help me with it seeing as-”

“Okay.”

“Well I have been thinking. How can I convert to Christianity when most of the Christians say that if I don’t, I will do the Satan dance or whatever?” She, finally, took a bent cigarette out of her bag and lit it.

“The church doesn’t really teach that any-”

“Besides the point.”

“And, aren’t you a catholic?”

“Besides the point.”

Image: Robert Capozzi Springtown

“Well, I don’t quite get what you mean, then.”

“It’s a matter of sincerity, is what I mean. How can I, or anyone for that matter, be expected to join them when they want me to join? How can I take them seriously when all they want is my soul? I was thinking that, maybe, I would start my own religion.” Anne said this with a grin and leaned back against her door, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t want anyone to join. It would be like a terribly cruel joke that I would play on the world.”

“Oh yeah, that’s funny.”

“Isn’t it? I would preach all sorts of terrible things, but the most important thing, the only true thing, would be that if you joined the religion, you would go to straight to hell. But, in order to really follow the religion and get into heaven, you would not join. You see?”

“Yeah.”

“I would get damned in the process but all for the greater good.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s real funny. I have to run though.”

“Oh yeah. Me too. That bed is calling my name.” Anne laughed and began unlocking the door.

“It was nice seeing you, Anne”

“You too, Marcel.” Anne kissed him on the cheek. She left her hand on his shoulder and feigned the slightest kind of empathetic smile, as if not sure that she would ever see him again.

Marcel walked outside. The moon still hung there like some great goddess. “Quit looking, you will find no dead things here.”

Marcel began the morning’s services. It was a cool October morning and the congregation looked particularly uninspired. A few children were whispering in the back of the room. A sleeping woman yelled in surprise as one of the altar boys fervently wrung the altar bells. Unlike most days, Marcel took little notice to the crowd. His eyes were fixed on the unusually small entrance to the church. It looked so very much like a sphincter.

-Connor Syrewicz

Image: Tad Richards George Sickles Road, Saugerties

The Overread Walker

The highest billboard spread above

Bears Bishop’s fish, the gutted wretch.

The scaly silver flank thereof

Sprawled out, a dim celestial sketch.

The famous yellow, feline mist

Has festered to a rusty red

Now lacking energy for trysts

And bloated, cannot leave its bed.

Set in the melting lukewarm sleet,

The sum of Taylor’s golden ink.

It leached into the pockmark street

And floats atop the puddle-brinks

And in my ear as I walk by

I swear I hear a buzzing fly.

-Peter Viola

Poem for the Harvest

Me gusta la mente

que est abajo de mi sombrero,

Pero a veces yo pienso

“Quiero mas dinero!”

El viaje de la fortuna

tiene muchas vías,

A veces- el vino perfecto

Otras veces– las uvas son agrias.

I like the mind

that is under my hat

But sometimes I think

“I want more money!”

The journey of fortune

has many ways,

Sometimes- the perfect wine

Others- the grapes are sour.

-Jess Mullen

Images: Kate Stack Tree Stump

Kale

Harvest has been over for a while now.

Everything is in.

Except the kale.

Herbs hang dry from cellar beams.

Withered greens sleep deep in compost.

Snowquilts cover

beds and boughs and stones.

Except the kale.

The north wind dances.

Memories fade from memory.

You have to close your eyes and concentrate

to bring back that July day- so hot

your lungs heaved like blacksmith bellows.

And now— down that road of days,

cold scissors in gloved hands

snip sturdy green leaves that shouldn’t be.

But are.

-Laurence Carr

Image: Amy Cheng The Reverse Side Has a Reverse Side

Helping Verbs

1

The moon is

leaking blood.

One arrow points left,

the other, right,

toward a mother

fleeing with her baby.

2

My wife had

an Uncle Bugsy

who went

to the chair.

Many fires

are classified

as accidents.

People kill

for the same

reasons

bridges fail.

3

I wish I were a tree,

so my branches would shake,

birds scattering in alarm

and then returning.

Sun pours into

the woodpecker’s

eyes.

-Howie Good

Image: David Morris Cunningham Hammer from Remembrances of Things Present

Joann K. Deiudicibus is an instructor and Staff Assistant for the Composition Program at SUNY New Paltz, where she earned her MA in English (2003). She has read her poetry locally since 1995 and has been published in The North Street Journal, Orange Review, Literary Passions, Fortunate Fall, Chronogram, and the Shawangunk Review. Her work was selected for The Woodstock Poetry Festival, 2003. She is the Associate Editor (poetry) of WaterWrites, an anthology edited by her SUNY colleagues Laurence Carr, Penny Freel, and Rachel Rigolino, which celebrates the Hudson River. Joann has lived in the Hudson Valley since 1998 because she hates moving. A lot.

Karen Capobianco is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design where she received her BFA in Light Metals. In 2001 She received her MFA in Intermedia Design from SUNY New Paltz and 2009 also completed a degree in Art Education. She has taught digital media as an adjunct for several years at SUNY New Paltz and has also won several grants to teach paper making and bookmaking in the New Paltz School District. Prior to moving to New Paltz she owned Capobianco Designs, a design company in New York, and showed her work in galleries and museums around the world. She presently is working in digital media and has had several shows around the Hudson Valley. You can see more of her work at kcapobianco.com.

Laura Mooney is a student at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, and a graduate of Boston College in Boston, MA. Even live hog slaughters cannot dampen her enthusiasm for charcuterie.

Daniel Handal was born in Honduras and immigrated to the United States in 1994. He received his BS from Rutgers

University and studied Photography at the International Center of Photography. His work focuses on subcultures, relationships, and how identity is linked to these connections. Daniel has exhibited his work internationally at the Australian Centre for Photography and MKII in London. In the US he has exhibited at Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston; and the Museum of Sex, New York among others. Daniel has been awarded with residencies at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Ithaca and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He currently lives and works in New York City. http://danielhandal.com

Zan Strumfeld is currently a junior studying English and Journalism at SUNY New Paltz. She contemplates on a daily basis whether she should major in Math. She finds beauty in bass lines and making to-do lists. Some of her work can be found in Stonesthrow Review.

Chris Pryslopski has been living, learning, and working in the Hudson River Valley since the early 1990s. Presently, he resides in Rosendale where he has been renovating a house for the last ten years which is as much sculpture and essay as it is shelter, sometimes, in fact, too much of the former and too little of the latter.

Robert Capozzi was born in Allegany, NY and lives in High Falls, NY. He works in printmaking, painting and photographic-based media. Capozzi is employed by the State University of New York at New Paltz as Printmaking Adjunct Instructor and Studio Technician. Robert Capozzi's work has been exhibited by several national and international exhibitions including: Jyväskylä Art Museum, Jyväskylä, Finland, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY, The Museum of Contemporary Art at

Hongik University, Seoul, Korea, Roennebaeksholm Arts and Culture Center, Naestved, Denmark. Capozzi’s photographic-based work is derived from various lens- based image-making methods. The work, both stark and subtle, merges the results of both digital and analog media. Often using obsolete film cameras and low-end image scanners to capture his subject, the imposed limitations become a challenge that adds a poetic unknown to the process. A faith in film as an intermediary adds mystery in the making process, vastly unknown in a convenient, rapid-fire digital era. The combination of tools employed serve simply as a means to record light, shadow and reflection. Capozzi affirms, “such with life, flaws are often apparent but hover merely at the surface.” For further information, please visit www.capozziphotographic.com

Connor Syrewicz is 20 years old and was raised on Long Island. He began writing in his first two years of college at SUNY New Paltz. He is currently attending Binghamton University where he is studying creative writing and literature as an undergraduate.

Elizabeth Unterman’s photography and video work is primarily concerned with exploring the landscape and examining how it assists in shaping a culture’s belief system. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions including Revisit at the Herter Gallery, Amherst, MA; The Boston Young Contemporaries at Boston University; The Screening at Samson Projects, Boston; The Woodstock Biennial at the Woodstock/Byrdcliffe Guild and the Photo Regional at the Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY to name a few. In addition, Elizabeth has curated numerous exhibitions including a group exhibition at Rhode Island School of Design's Sol Koffler Gallery and Site Seeing:

Explorations of Landscape at The Center for Photography at Woodstock. She earned her MFA in Photography from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007. From 2007-2010, Elizabeth was the Education Coordinator at The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) and is currently Adjunct Faculty of Photography at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, NY. To learn more about Elizabeth visit www.elizabethunterman.com Tad Richards is the artistic director of Opus 40 in Saugerties, and a member of the Saugerties Artists Group. He has exhibited in Ulster County, New York City and Santa Fe, NM, and illustrated books by Neale Godfrey (self help) and Rachel Loden (poetry). He submitted art work because his work in this area is more relevant to the Hudson Valley, but is known as a writer. He has written 30-odd books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Hi most recent project is Nick and Jake, a book and audio play featuring Alan Arkin, Tom Conti and Ali MacGraw. Peter Viola is an English major, celebrating passing into his second decade of existence and third year in New Paltz by writing snarky letters to people he’ll never meet. If he could be summed up in arcane, invented terminology, Anti-Postmodern Humanist wouldn’t quite suffice, but might come close. To find him alone in the woods at sunrise jotting down images and phrases in a tattered notebook should not surprise you. With the exception of several poems found in a student-run literary magazine by the name of Cellar Door, his main body of work resides in various electronic mediums, hiding in the crevasses of tiny integrated circuits and mechanisms with fancy, ten-dollar-words for names waiting to be called upon and absorbed into the folds of more organic circuits.

Jess Mullen enjoys laughing, libations, arts & crafts, relaxing with many snacks, and writing, of course. You can follow her international escapades at www.mygardenofthegreatlife.com and hear some of her poetically-infused music endeavors at http://soundcloud.com/lupethebenevolentdictator. In addition to random publishing credits including Chronogram and some poetry art installations at music festivals, she was the founder, editor, and main contributor of two satirical newspapers- the bilingual Periodico de Posibilidad and The CRAZYTOWN Crier. Archived issues are available at www.crazytowncrier.blogspot.com. Although she lives in New York City, her heart resides in the Hudson Valley, the place she has made her home on and off for a decade. Kate Stack will be graduating from SUNY New Paltz in May 2011. She will receive a Bachelors of Science degree in Visual Arts with a concentration in ceramics, and a minor in psychology. She plans to continue working in ceramics after graduation. Laurence Carr writes plays, fiction, and poetry. His book of micro-fiction and prose poems, The Wytheport Tales, was published by Codhill Press and he is the editor of Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, and co-editor of WaterWrites, A Hudson River Anthology also from Codhill. His work has been published in numerous zines and journals, including Home Planet News, Chronogram, and Out of Line. Over 20 of his plays and theatre pieces have been produced Off and Off-Off-Broadway, regionally and in Europe. He teaches Creative and Dramatic Writing at SUNY New Paltz and heads the SUNY Playwrights’ Project. His play, The

Wakeville Stories, was produced by the SUNY Theatre Department.

Amy Cheng was born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil, Oklahoma and Texas. She received a BFA in Painting from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York. She has completed four public art commissions: a hand-painted ceramic mural for the Howard St. L Station in Chicago; a mosaic column for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport; seven faceted glass windscreens commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit for the Cleveland Street Subway Station in Brooklyn, New York; and a suite of murals for the auditorium at P.S. 58, The School of Heroes, in Queens, NY commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program. The Florida Art in State Buildings Program has installed one of her paintings, “No Condition Is Permanent” in Florida Atlantic University’s S.W. Wimberly Library. She has had one-person exhibitions at Gallery 456 and Penny Liebman Contemporary Art in New York City, at the Harrison Gallery in Boca Raton, FL, and Art & Soul Gallery in Boulder, CO. She has been awarded a Senior Fulbright Lecture/Research Award to Brazil, two New York Foundation for the Arts painting fellowships, and a travel grant to China from Arts International. She is a Professor in the Art Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me

(Desperanto, 2011), as well as 23 print and digital poetry chapbooks.

David Morris Cunningham is a working photographer living in Woodstock, New York. He has studied with Douglas Beasley, Richard Edelman, Greg Gorman, Kevin Lynch, Lydia Panas and Peter Turnley, among others. His work has been shown at The Gallery for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO; the Woodstock Artist’s Association Museum in Woodstock, NY; The Cabane Gallery in Phoenicia, NY; The Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon, NY; Oriole 9 in Woodstock and The Living Room in Kingston, NY. David's work has also been published in Chronogram and Roll magazines. Remembrances of Things Present will be on display in a solo show at WAAM from March 12 through April 3, 2011. To view additional work please visit davidmorriscunningham.com

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Acknowledgements

There are so many individuals and businesses without whom Awosting Alchemy could not exist in this form. Thank you to Elizabeth Unterman, who saved the magazine from being crafted with typewriter and mimeograph, taped and hand-numbered. Your technological prowess is invaluable. Thank you to David Friedman & Barner Books of New Paltz who have supported the project from Day 01. Thank you to Morningstar Properties, Deegan-Sanglyn Realty, Elting Memorial Library, Verde & Cocoon of New Paltz, and PDQ Printing who all made the opening event the place to be. Thank you, talented & diverse band of contributors, for doing your art & word thing so well here in the Valley. Aw/Al exists because you exist! And thank you

again, dear reader, not only for beginning at page 01, but for reading through to the end. We hope you enjoyed your journey and will be back for the next issue in January 2011.

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Submission Guidelines

Thanks for choosing to send your work to Awosting Alchemy. We’re writers and artists too, dutifully sending our work out into the atmosphere with our fingers crossed. We truly appreciate what you do and your decision to include us in your efforts. Always check our website for updated submission guidelines & contests. Email us submissions of art, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction at awostingalchemy@hotmail.com You may also feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. Our response time is fairly swift. Expect to hear back from us within about a month. Thanks again. We look forward to your submissions. Send us things you had to write or create because they were nowhere else in the world, sharp and new and not yet worn out by others. Strive for a new set of fingerprints.

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